As described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,712,173 issued to Esselink on Mar. 30 2004 which corresponds to Canadian Patent 2,299,064 issued Apr. 17 2007, snowmobiling is a very popular recreational pastime. One drawback of snowmobiles, however, is that they sometimes get stuck. When this occurs, because snowmobiles are heavy, they are very difficult to manoeuvre. Often what is required is that the operator, who is often alone, must walk to the front of the snowmobile and try to free the snowmobile by pulling on the front skids or otherwise on the front end of the snowmobile. It is often advantageous in assisting freeing the snowmobile to have a second person operate the throttle of the snowmobile as the snowmobile operator is tugging on the front end to thereby gain the assistance of the snowmobile's motivating force as the front skis are dislodged. It is also advantageous to be able to control the throttle by foot pressure rather than solely by use of a thumb control.
When however the operator is alone, it is not possible to simultaneously pull on the front of the snowmobile and operate the snowmobile throttle which is typically located as a thumb controlled lever on the snowmobile handle bar.
Consequently, the above patent provides an arrangement in which a cable conduit is mounted to the throttle coupler and to the remote actuator. The push/pull cable is slidably journaled in the conduit so as to be mounted at a first end of the push/pull cable to the throttle coupler and at an opposite second end to the remote actuator. Actuation of the remote actuator thereby actuates movement of the throttle coupler so as to actuate the throttle controller correspondingly. The remote actuator includes a pivotable member pivotally mounted to a base member about a pivot on the base member. The second end of the push/pull cable is mounted to a first end of the pivotable member. An opposite second end of the pivotable member is manually operable so as to rotate the pivotable member about the pivot relative to the base member to thereby push or pull the second end of the flexible cable respectively into, or from, the cable conduit. This respectively, extends or retracts the first end of the push/pull cable respectively from, or into, the conduit to actuate the throttle coupler and thereby to actuate the throttle controller on the snowmobile.
This arrangement is however complicated in construction and lacks safety systems which can remove the throttle operation to halt the machine in the event that any difficulties arise during the operation.